The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg eBook

The Wilsons devised a grand new thing—­a
fancy-dress ball. They made no actual promises,
but told all their acquaintanceship in confidence that
they were thinking the matter over and thought they
should give it—­“and if we do, you
will be invited, of course.” People were
surprised, and said, one to another, “Why, they
are crazy, those poor Wilsons, they can’t afford
it.” Several among the nineteen said privately
to their husbands, “It is a good idea, we will
keep still till their cheap thing is over, then we
will give one that will make it sick.”

The days drifted along, and the bill of future squanderings
rose higher and higher, wilder and wilder, more and
more foolish and reckless. It began to look
as if every member of the nineteen would not only spend
his whole forty thousand dollars before receiving-day,
but be actually in debt by the time he got the money.
In some cases light-headed people did not stop with
planning to spend, they really spent—­on
credit. They bought land, mortgages, farms,
speculative stocks, fine clothes, horses, and various
other things, paid down the bonus, and made themselves
liable for the rest—­at ten days.
Presently the sober second thought came, and Halliday
noticed that a ghastly anxiety was beginning to show
up in a good many faces. Again he was puzzled,
and didn’t know what to make of it. “The
Wilcox kittens aren’t dead, for they weren’t
born; nobody’s broken a leg; there’s no
shrinkage in mother-in-laws; nothing has happened—­it
is an insolvable mystery.”

There was another puzzled man, too—­the
Rev. Mr. Burgess. For days, wherever he went,
people seemed to follow him or to be watching out for
him; and if he ever found himself in a retired spot,
a member of the nineteen would be sure to appear,
thrust an envelope privately into his hand, whisper
“To be opened at the town-hall Friday evening,”
then vanish away like a guilty thing. He was
expecting that there might be one claimant for the
sack—­doubtful, however, Goodson being dead—­but
it never occurred to him that all this crowd might
be claimants. When the great Friday came at
last, he found that he had nineteen envelopes.

III.

The town-hall had never looked finer. The platform
at the end of it was backed by a showy draping of
flags; at intervals along the walls were festoons
of flags; the gallery fronts were clothed in flags;
the supporting columns were swathed in flags; all
this was to impress the stranger, for he would be
there in considerable force, and in a large degree
he would be connected with the press. The house
was full. The 412 fixed seats were occupied;
also the 68 extra chairs which had been packed into
the aisles; the steps of the platform were occupied;
some distinguished strangers were given seats on the
platform; at the horseshoe of tables which fenced
the front and sides of the platform sat a strong force